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Techmeme
July 31, 2026, 8:55 PM
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Newley Purnell / Bloomberg:
DeepSeek rolls out the official V4 Flash API in public beta, touting enhanced agent capabilities and benchmark scores “far surpassing” V4 Pro Preview  —  China's DeepSeek rolled out a public beta application programming interface, or API, for its flagship artificial intelligence model …
Geoff Brumfiel / NPR:
Google rolls back an image generation tool in Google Earth to add “stronger guardrails” after concerns arose it can be used to create deepfake satellite imagery  —  A day after Google unveiled a new feature that allowed users to create AI-generated satellite images with the click …
Reuters:
Sources: OpenAI has discovered other instances where AI agents escaped containment; none of the agents were thought to have left OpenAI's network  —  OpenAI has discovered other instances in which autonomous agents have escaped containment as the company expands its investigation …
Bloomberg:
Cybersecurity experts fault Anthropic and OpenAI for sloppy safeguards and inadequate human oversight after their models broke into outside organizations  —  Cybersecurity experts are faulting Anthropic PBC and OpenAI for sloppy safeguards after their models broke into outside organizations …
Reuters:
Trump says he does not think Iran is behind a cyberattack on Minnesota water systems: “I think I blame it on Minnesota because they're grossly incompetent”  —  U.S. President Donald Trump at Camp David told reporters that he does not think Iran is behind a cyberattack on Minnesota water systems …
Andy Greenberg / Wired:
A leaked memo, issued by the water utilities information sharing group WaterISAC, links dozens of cyberattacks against Minnesota water utilities to Iran
Lauren Forristal / TechCrunch:
Snap says its recommendation systems will be adjusted so only videos created by real people, not AI-generated ones, are eligible for Spotlight recommendations  —  Snapchat is the latest company to strengthen its stance against AI slop.  The social network platform will no longer reward fully …
Wall Street Journal:
An in-depth account of the past two days inside Situational Awareness, as Aschenbrenner assured investors he would focus on changes to his portfolio management  —  Leopold Aschenbrenner was hailed as the ‘Nostradamus of AI.’ But his Situational Awareness hedge fund took on too much leverage, leading to a crash he never saw coming.
Wall Street Journal:
Letter: Situational Awareness is down ~67% in July, but remains up ~80% in 2026; sources say it planned to sell $3.5B of its Anthropic stake but backed out
Katherine Hamilton / Wall Street Journal:
OpenAI says its models now have more than 1B active users and are used by more than 2M businesses  —  The announcement comes after OpenAI said earlier this week it was cutting the price of several of its models  —  OpenAI has more than one billion active users and two million businesses using its artificial intelligence models.
More: OpenAI, PYMNTS, and Quartz.  LinkedIn: Sarah Friar
Jonathan Stempel / Reuters:
New York sues Kalshi for alleged violations of its gambling laws; the CFTC files an emergency motion to stop the state's enforcement, calling it an “overreach”  —  New York's attorney general sued Kalshi on Friday, claiming that its prediction market platform violates state laws against illegal gambling.
Abner Li / 9to5Google:
Google starts rolling out access to Gemini Spark for Google AI Pro subscribers to over 160 countries and adds a Chrome auto browse integration on desktop  —  Gemini Spark is getting two big updates today, starting with Chrome auto browse integration on desktop.  —  Previously, Gemini Spark had access to a remote web browser.
Mackenzie Hawkins / Bloomberg:
Sources: Moonshot has a computing power agreement with Alibaba for the use of ~20K Nvidia chips; some say the deal is for H200 chips, which Alibaba denies  —  Chinese AI champion Moonshot has a computing power agreement with Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. for the use of around 20,000 Nvidia Corp. chips …
Kit Norton / Barron's Online:
Roblox shares close down ~27%, its worst-ever daily percentage decline, after forecasting falling bookings and slowing revenue growth; RBLX is down 40%+ YTD  —  Choose Barron's as a preferred source of financial news  —  Key Points  —  Shares of Roblox tumbled Friday as Wall Street responded harshly …
Spencer Soper / Bloomberg:
Amazon shares closed up 15.32% on Friday, the biggest one-day jump since April 2012, after the company reported accelerating AWS revenue  —  Amazon.com Inc. shares surged the most since 2012 after the company reported accelerating cloud-computing revenue, easing investors' concerns …
Ethan Gach / Kotaku:
Sony reports Q1 PS5 sales of 1.38M units, down from 1.56M a year ago, taking total sales of the console to 95.3M units, and 125M PlayStation MAUs, up 2M YoY  —  Profit projects are up even as console sales are down … What comes after that is anybody's guess as the PlayStation 6 approaches amid …

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About This Page

This is a Techmeme archive page. It shows how the site appeared at 8:55 PM ET, July 31, 2026.

The most current version of the site as always is available at our home page. To view an earlier snapshot click here and then modify the date indicated.

From Mediagazer

Alex Sherman / CNBC:
Sources: in its next US TV deal, the NHL seeks a 50%-100% increase over its seven-year, $4.5B contract with ESPN and TNT; formal talks can begin on January 1

Bloomberg:
A look at Disney's AI push; sources: it is testing AI-powered suggestions and could add chats with characters on Disney+, and execs saw AI demos at Amazon MGM

Kali Bomeli / Columbia Journalism Review:
A look at pre-election expansion of partisan websites disguised as local news in Ohio, promoted with Meta ads by groups with ties to Democrats and Republicans

More News

Ben Szalinski / Capitol News Illinois:
Illinois Governor JB Pritzker signs the Children's Social Media Safety Act, a bill designed to limit children's access to “addictive” social media algorithms
Elizabeth Grenier / Deutsche Welle:
A German court rules that Suno has violated copyrights and must disclose illicit revenue after Germany's state-mandated licensing agency GEMA sued in 2025
Michelle Hackman / Wall Street Journal:
Sources: the Trump admin is weighing a $100K fee for foreign students seeking to work in the US after graduation; a judge blocked Trump's $100K H-1B fee in June

Earlier Picks

Eduardo Baptista / Reuters:
Papers and patents: Chinese military researchers distilled OpenAI and Anthropic models to train domestic AI systems and advance China's defense capabilities
Eduardo Baptista / Reuters:
MiniMax releases H3, a video model that generates up to 15-second clips in 2K resolution with native stereo sound, and plans to release its weights within days
Wall Street Journal:
Sources: Tesla prepared to separate its China unit before a potential SpaceX merger; advisers weighed a sale, spinoff, or closure; Musk calls it “fake news”
Sarah Perez / TechCrunch:
Apple CFO Kevan Parekh says Services surpassed 1.5B paid subscriptions, up from 1B in January 2025, but a gaming slowdown and App Store changes hurt growth
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